First Game Impressions

[StargazingDog]

(Also what's the point of gaining legacy points in the third age, is it just to prepare for a 4th age down the line?)

Legacy points are also points for scoring.

 

[Disgustipated]

One thing I haven't been using is mementos. They almost seem OP when I saw a streamer using them last week. But maybe I'll give it a go for my next game.

Now I'm running into the issue of I don't know which leader to play next. I eventually want to do them all for achievements, but none I feel an immediate need to play.

 

[James_Champagne]

While I'm happy to see that Knorr and Rizzo are back on music duties (and I just want to say I really, REALLY loved their work in VI), I just wish there was more music here. Like CIV VI had a truly mindboggling amount of music, I think over 650 songs or so? But here, unlike VI where each Civ not only got an Ancient/Medieval/Industrial/Atomic theme, but also a number of ambient themes, in VII it seems like each civ just got one theme and that's it. Add in the fact that each era only has 2 ambient peace/war themes, and you have a soundtrack that's only like, what, 41 songs or so? As a result, I found that the music started to get repetitious very fast (this was especially noticeable in the Exploration Era with the "Char Der Seligen Geister" peace theme). I know the DLCs will gradually add more, but . . . after VI it seems like a bit of a setback.

 

[Mark1031]

Played 2 always war games at gov and sov as Napoleon Rome. Finished 1st in Exploration age and 2nd at start of Modern age. Always war rule was you had to declare on 1st meeting civ but penalty for surprise war is too great so I just drove relations to formal war level as quickly as possible and then never made peace. The AI war fighting was hit or miss. Once they surrounded and killed my commander, I got careless. They were a bit better fighting sometimes massing forces and doing some damage but by and large uncoordinated wandering around getting killed. Overall fun esp the commander promotions. I dont like the terrain graphics which probably just means I have to get used to in but it was a pain getting at some cities because I didnt see the cliffs. Love the reenforce function, hate the slow unit movement. City cap is a problem for this kind of game and burning too many cities is not viable as it is -1 war support with everyone forever.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Played 2 always war games at gov and sov as Napoleon Rome. Finished 1st in Exploration age and 2nd at start of Modern age. Always war rule was you had to declare on 1st meeting civ but penalty for surprise war is too great so I just drove relations to formal war level as quickly as possible and then never made peace. The AI war fighting was hit or miss. Once they surrounded and killed my commander, I got careless. They were a bit better fighting sometimes massing forces and doing some damage but by and large uncoordinated wandering around getting killed. Overall fun esp the commander promotions. I dont like the terrain graphics which probably just means I have to get used to in but it was a pain getting at some cities because I didnt see the cliffs. Love the reenforce function, hate the slow unit movement. City cap is a problem for this kind of game and burning too many cities is not viable as it is -1 war support with everyone forever.

I know what you mean about the terrain graphics. Then again, I still can't see CivVI hills about half of the time.

 

[ThERat]

@mark, thanks for the sharing about always war. I don't think Civ 7 is made for empire building nor for always war. I doubt the current batch of developers are interested in such play styles.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I don't think Civ 7 is made for empire building nor for always war. I doubt the current batch of developers are interested in such play styles.

The Settlement Cap in Civ VII is a very soft cap, but it is still a Cap: in my first game, being more enthusiastic than knowledgeable, I went to conquer one of my more obstreperous neighbors, and after taking all of his settlements found myself not just 1 or 2, but 5 settlements over the cap.

A - 25 Happiness deficit turned out to be a serious handicap and pretty nearly crippled me for the rest of the Antiquity Age and absolutely hammered me in the Crisis Period at the end of the Age

Lesson Learned: the game is NOT set up for the careers of Alexander the Great in Antiquity or Chingis Khan in Exploration!

 

[Mark1031]

@mark, thanks for the sharing about always war. I don't think Civ 7 is made for empire building nor for always war. I doubt the current batch of developers are interested in such play styles.

Well It was actually fun using the commanders but you are right that the penalty for warmongering or excessive expansion is too high. I had a 1 city per age memento boost in the 2nd game so was up to 22 cap in the modern age but this still isnt enough as some AI spam BS cities and you need to take them all to win. I have no idea what the happiness algo is though. I was rolling along with 15-20 happy in capitol and then 9 unhappy a few turns later while maintaining +war support and only like 1 over the cap. The terrain is all pretty bland with evenly distributed resources and there is room for tons of cities but you can't have them. I found the building gameplay to be tedious, every era you have to put up new buildings and in just the right way and reach some obscure goals. Military I understand, take cities win prizes.

 

[ThERat]

The Settlement Cap in Civ VII is a very soft cap, but it is still a Cap: in my first game, being more enthusiastic than knowledgeable, I went to conquer one of my more obstreperous neighbors, and after taking all of his settlements found myself not just 1 or 2, but 5 settlements over the cap.

A - 25 Happiness deficit turned out to be a serious handicap and pretty nearly crippled me for the rest of the Antiquity Age and absolutely hammered me in the Crisis Period at the end of the Age

Lesson Learned: the game is NOT set up for the careers of Alexander the Great in Antiquity or Chingis Khan in Exploration!

I have not played but a combination of penalties for too many cities and negative war support if you raze cities make always war almost impossible or nothing that make always war attractive to me.

 

[mielony]

I'm after my first game with Kserkses. Persia - Abbasids - Moguls . Cultural victory. Viceroy level . I'm having more fun than in Civ6 on the day of release. Every day I try to put my children and wife to bed earlier to play a little before bed. Greetings from Polish .

 

[Binkov]

Can you raze cities upon capture? Then they don't contribute to your city cap?
But what other bad effects happen if you raze a city?

 

[Nikolai II]

Can you raze cities upon capture? Then they don't contribute to your city cap?
But what other bad effects happen if you raze a city?

You can. It cost you -1 war support in all wars for that age per settlemenr.

 

[Binkov]

So razing city penalty seems like a much smaller penalty than taking a city that goes over your city limit?

If so, then taking small cities is pointless. Are you better off just razing them and keeping only the largest enemy cities?

But there I foresee another issue. If there is not enough cities between your empire and the big city you just took from your enemy, since you left a razed, empty land in between, won't that new big city I just took simply rebel and change hands?

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Stability and performance on PS5 seems to be absolutely fine on small maps, no issues. This is ok, since I have a group of four who play, so we can have a lot of fun with it.

However, I hope they fix the bigger maps and soon, it would be a shame to play this way every time. Similarly, I hope they bring more map types and tweak the whole idea of distant lands, this would bring a huge amount of variety that I think we'll need.

Minor gripes aside though, we all stayed up far too late playing last night and the time just flew past, I can't understand the criticism that it doesn't feel like Civ or doesn't have the one more turn feeling, it really does for me.

I feel like there is still so much that I don't understand and have not explored!

 

[stealth_nsk]

Agreed. Natural History should be moved one tier later, and also Hegemony.

Additionally:
- only cities with a museum or university should be able to buy/produce an explorer. Limit explorers to one per museum/university.
- increase research time per continent to 5-8 turns (multiple explorers can research at the same time to sped it up).
- increase dig time to 5-8 turns (multiple explorers can research at the same time to sped it up).
- require open borders for explorers to dig in foreign territory.
- allow to attack explorers when at war.
- slightly increase the amount of artifacts on the map.
- tune down how many explorers the AI builds.

That's a bit too much together. Some ideas could be implemented, but with all of them cultural victory will be unreachable. Also:
- I don't think Natural history should be moved up. Digging is the important part of the game
- Instead of moving Hegemony up, I'd make it having more prerequisites - currently it's on side branch and could be beelined
- Requiring open borders would make cultural victory impossible in multiplayer, allowing to attack explorers while in war potentially too. With Civ7 trying to be as good in MP as in SP, I don't think those changes make sense
- Tuning how many explorers AI build shouldn't be a separate change, it should follow other changes.

But overall I agree what cultural victory should be tweaked to require more investments and time, but it should still be reachable in both SP and MP.

 

[Siptah]

That's a bit too much together. Some ideas could be implemented, but with all of them cultural victory will be unreachable. Also:
- I don't think Natural history should be moved up. Digging is the important part of the game
- Instead of moving Hegemony up, I'd make it having more prerequisites - currently it's on side branch and could be beelined
- Requiring open borders would make cultural victory impossible in multiplayer, allowing to attack explorers while in war potentially too. With Civ7 trying to be as good in MP as in SP, I don't think those changes make sense
- Tuning how many explorers AI build shouldn't be a separate change, it should follow other changes.

But overall I agree what cultural victory should be tweaked to require more investments and time, but it should still be reachable in both SP and MP.

These were just some suggestions, and it may well be that they overshoot when all are taken together.
I agree that digging is the main part and shouldn't come too late, but I think if it came later, your actual culture output would be more important. But this could also be achieved if the world's fair needs to be unlocked right before future civic in the civic tree instead of a free unlock with 15 artifacts.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I have not played but a combination of penalties for too many cities and negative war support if you raze cities make always war almost impossible or nothing that make always war attractive to me.

What it all means is that a planned war has to include some non-military elements.

In most of my wars in Antiquity (the Age I have the most experience with) I started with +20 - 25 Happiness. That means I could go up to 4 - 5 Settlements over my cap before any penalties kicked in. This is preferable to razing cities and getting War Support penalties, because low War Support makes cities increasingly likely to revolt.

The exception to this .(- and in Civ VII, there ALWAYS seems to be an exception somewhere) is Tubman, who starts off with a +5 War Support - make a note that war with her can get very nasty because unless you 'blitz' her and end it fast, she can outlast you - and I have had her simply 'turtle' until my cities started revolting from War Weariness (negative Support) that forces me to make peace - regardless of any battlefield victories.

It is all a different set of calculations from purely military, but until/unless we all understand them, Always War is much tricker in Civ VII than in previous Civ games - but also, IMHO, much closer to historical reality. Remember, the Great Empires of conquest in Antiquity and Exploration historically (Alexander the Great and Chingis Khan's) both collapsed very quickly after the conquerers died - Alexander's essentially fell apart before his funeral, the Mongolian Empire began to fragment less than 50 years after Chingis' death.

Avoiding that kind of collapse is the real 'military' problem in Civ VII, not massing enough Army Commanders and units to conquer in the first place.

 

[aenima]

i finished my first game last week with a military victory (close to an econmic one too). Very disappointed by the end of the game and the lack of statistics (i really missed the review of all the game on a mini map in civ V .... ) and graphs.

Since i started an other one in sovereign level this time, random leader/civ (Trung Trac/Maurya), standard map and always epic speed. I didi the exploration age with Majapahit civ and now in the modern age with Meiji era Japan. A tough war in this era with 3 civs that decided to attack me and it's difficult to follow all the battle fields during AI turns (i liked to see what's happenned to my units as it was in civ VI...) but i survive to it (even gain some towns). Now i'm on the way on cultural victory (i was able to collect the 15 artefacts).

Some says here that all the events are bonuses but with the crisis it's really negative and it can be challenging to deal with it when your empire is not totally prepared for it. And sometimes it's quite hard to chose the less impacting policy crisis card ....

 

[Hildebolt Von Berenreuthe]

While I'm happy to see that Knorr and Rizzo are back on music duties (and I just want to say I really, REALLY loved their work in VI), I just wish there was more music here. Like CIV VII had a truly mindboggling amount of music, I think over 650 songs or so? But here, unlike VI where each Civ not only got an Ancient/Medieval/Industrial/Atomic theme, but also a number of ambient themes, in VII it seems like each civ just got one theme and that's it. Add in the fact that each era only has 2 ambient peace/war themes, and you have a soundtrack that's only like, what, 41 songs or so? As a result, I found that the music started to get repetitious very fast (this was especially noticeable in the Exploration Era with the "Char Der Seligen Geister" peace theme). I know the DLCs will gradually add more, but . . . after VI it seems like a bit of a setback.

Also my thought. Bizarre to have only two ambient tracks per era. Makes it feel very stale, even if the music that is there is good.

 

[Taefin]

What it all means is that a planned war has to include some non-military elements.

I agree! After finishing antiquity in my third game, I think even with the small antiquity settlement limit, that the happiness and war support (for razing a settlement) are pretty well balanced. The production, gold, and influence needed to offset these exists, but creates a good opportunity cost for early expansion, while still allowing it to be rewarding.

This game I got up to 8/5, and negative happiness seriously cut into my celebration during two wars.

Also, this game I played deity and never unlocked spears/arrows (though I got an IP special unit with +7 when next to a friendly unit, and a commander +5), and so even if I razed 5 cities, I could have found several ways to offset opposing war support.

Side note: defensive commanders with the fortification path are very good on deity, it’s actually same-turn fortification to get +9 (or something).